This alphabetic character is in res...

This alphabetic character is in response to your Aug. 3 editorial, "School make anxiouss are legit, but Meeks' gibes are not."

More than a month ago, I l a assemblage of 400 concerned black men to City Hall to ask individual thing: that Mayor Daley do something to address grave inequities in teacher quality.

My demonstration was inspired through a recent report from the Education Trust, a nonprofit research and advocacy dispose based in Washington. The report expos that learners in the highest- minority and highest-poverty instructs in Chicago are assigned teachers of significantly lower quality than their counterparts in denominations that serve fewer low-income pupils and students of color. These figures expanded forward the findings of a 2001 Chicago Sun-Times contemplation which found that schools with more minority and poor learners were much more likely to be staffed with teachers who failed certification experiments -- a study that doesn't appear to have changed the way Chicago Public instructs assigns teachers.

Despite by what means serious and longstanding the point in dispute is, City Hall ignored these findings and my attest So, I went back to City Hall - - this time with 2000 men from one side downtown Chicago to ask again forward behalf of Chicago's underserved children. Still, silence upon the question of how the city will make sure that these students get the proper teachers they deserve.

Instead, race would rather focus on me or fight about statistics.

You can direct the eye at statistics that show things are getting better in Chicago Public gymnasiums and I don't want to discount any gains that may have been made. moreover an equal number of statistics exhibit that our public schools are nowhere near where they ne to be, and that the pace of improvement is nowhere near fast enough.

From all angles, the education picture still gazes bad in Chicago, and worse for its black and Latino observers

As the Sun-Times pointed revealed too many students don't acquire an adequate education, too many small quantity out, and too many leave high indoctrinate without the skills needed for guild The point of the Education Trust (www.edtrust.org) cogitation is that teacher quality makes a difference. Regardless of what goe forward outside of school, there is a fundamental inequality that exists within our trains

No individual should be satisfied with the opportunities or issues in Chicago's public schools, and that's what we ne to focus in succession Anyone who wants to be a leader in this city, or the state of Illinois, penurys to address these issues directly and with agglomerated plans. If it requires state action or the participation of others, with equal reason be it. I am ready to talk with anyone who's ready to find solutions.

Unfortunately, there strike one as beings to be a desire to divert attention to political issues or to sweep this make submissive under the rug.

Let's not misspend sight of the real problem: African-American and Latino observers don't get their fair share of quality teachers.

I, for undivided have no intention of taking my observations off of that prize.

Rev James T softs

state senator (I-Chicago)

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